In the wonderful class that is Human Biology we are now studying the blood. We have learned that Human red blood cells have no nuclei. I have read in a book somewhere, that birds do have nuclei in their red blood cells. Is this true? And if so, why? The ratio of calories to size that a bird needs in a day is much greater than that of a human. Surely then, they would need to convert this into energy and so need more oxygen. By presumtion, a bird’s red cells should need to contain more haemoglobin. They require more energy and use it a lot more quickly than we do… so why do their red blood cells have nuclei… doesn’t it take up needed haemoglobin space?
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So sorry, i would help, but i'm not THAT good of a biologist! =-)
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It's all due to evolutionary differences. To begin with, the human red blood cells ARE nucleated in the early stages of it's formation, but through the process of being built, the nucleus is gotten rid of before the terminal stage. That's because humans are more advanced than birds. We evolved to get rid of the nucleus for practical reasons because our circulatory system is different. Mammals like humans have smaller end blood vessels and so in order to be able to squeeze through the small capillaries, the red blood cells have to be small and flexible. The presence of a nucleus would make it bigger and more difficult to circulate. And, as you said, it also makes room for more hemoglobin after all. So it's just the case that we are more advanced and so our ciculatory system is more perfected than birds. Hope this helps.
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I'm not sure if this relates at all, but birds some sort of air sacks outside (though connecting to) their lungs. They also absorb about 3 times the amount of oxygen, compare to humans.
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Wow... Thankyou, that explains it really well XD And yeah 'mou that was in the book too! They need more air sacs than we do which are right next to their intestines; ''S why they look puffy around the middle XD
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Did you know that altraviolet sunlight kills ever viruss known to man. If we could filter blood thru altraviolet light the antibodies in the blood would gather up the dead viruss and adapted to fight it. mybe im wrong but its just a idea.